In Sunday’s men’s 100-meter breaststroke final, Adam Peaty was beaten by just 0.02 seconds to take home the gold medal in joint second place, missing his opportunity to win the event for a third consecutive Olympic Games.

It had been expected that if anyone was going to deny Peaty victory, then it would be China’s Qin Haiyang. Instead, he finished in seventh in a stunning race that saw Italy’s Nicolò Martinenghi take the gold medal. Team USA’s Nic Fink, who is a full-time engineer, matched Peaty’s time and therefore shares the silver medal.

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In a very sluggish final, Martinenghi’s victory time of 59.03 seconds was more than two seconds slower than Peaty’s 2019 world record

“I look at the board there and you never think that it would be 59 seconds to win it,” Peaty said.

“I gave my absolute all there and I executed it as well as I could,” an emotional Peaty said. “It doesn’t matter what the time says on the board, I know that in my heart I’ve already won. I’m not crying because I’ve come second, I’m crying because it took so much to get here.”

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